Plaquette

About this artwork

Plaquette, rond, van lood met een voorstelling van De heilige Cecilia voor een orgel, achter haar een man aan de blaasbalg.

Art Historical Context

This charming lead plaquette, cast around 1600, captures a tender moment with Saint Cecilia, the revered patron saint of music, seated before a pipe organ. The round medallion, just 6 cm in diameter and weighing a mere 26 grams, depicts the saint in quiet devotion, with a man laboriously pumping the bellows behind her—an everyday detail that brings the scene to life. Created anonymously through the casting process, where molten lead was poured into a mold to form a low-relief image, this small artwork exemplifies the plaquette tradition: portable, affordable devotional objects popular among co...

About the Artist

anonymous

In the vast tapestry of art history, "Anonymous" stands not as a singular individual but as a collective designation for countless unidentified creators whose works have endured across millennia. These artists, spanning prehistoric cave painters to medieval illuminators and folk craftsmen, produced the foundational layers of human visual culture. Prior to the Renaissance, when individual fame emer...